PERTEMPS Bees will be playing against 'ghosts' when they take on Bedford Blues at Goldington Road tomorrow.

Having to beat the Blues on their home track in the final game of the season to stay in National One is a big ask of any team.

But when you are also having to rely on Rotherham, with nothing to play for, travelling to Sedgley Park, who are fighting for their lives, then the odds are enough to make the bookie a happy man.

Bees lie bottom with the Tigers a place and two points above them and then Launceston, the final team in the survival stakes, a point higher up the greasy pole.

The Cornishmen are away at Northampton, who have played 29 and won 29, so the All Blacks' season is effectively already over.

They need both Bees and Blues to lose to avoid relegation in their first season in National One.

Bees' cause was not helped by the news Rotherham head coach Craig West was missing from training this week which cast doubts upon how seriously the Titans were taking their final game, especially after a 52-15 home tonking by Doncaster last week.

And there are suspicions fringe players could find themselves on the bus over the Pennines tomorrow.

Russell Earnshaw, Bees' coach, knows it is now out of his hands and he can only deal with the factors he can control as he continues to plan for next season.

He is hoping to have a backs coach in place before the end of the week no matter where Bees find themselves next season.

Earnshaw obviously wants to survive but is realistic and accepts that he could win brilliantly tomorrow and still end up in National Two.

He said: "If we win and we go down then I cannot have any arguments. The boys have been brilliant."

If Bees had shown the same form before Christmas as they have shown after then they would have been looking at how high they could finish in the top half rather than who they could be playing in National Two next term.

Scrum-half Nicky Griffiths is back in the squad for tomorrow and centre James Aston could well be avaulable after injury.